UPDATE: Three wildfires discovered in Clearwater area

Three new wildfires have been reported in the Clearwater area on June 13, in addition to one that’s been burning near Clearwater Lake for some time.

According to BC Wildfire Service, all three of the new fires are roughly .01 hectares in size and suspected to have been caused by lightning, though due to a technical glitch in BC Wildfire Service’s computer system, have been showing up on its website as human-caused.

A fire near Raft Mountain, another small blaze near Clearwater Valley Road and one in the Finn Creek area were all discovered the same day, though personnel and aircraft haven’t been able to locate the fires due to their insignificant size.

“For (the fire) east of Clearwater Valley Road, we had three personnel respond and a bird dog go out on site, and they haven’t found anything at this time, but that’s not to say that there is nothing out there,” said Nicole Bonnett of the BC Wildfire Service.

“Its temperature isn’t displaying any sort of activity, and there’s no smoke they’ve been able to locate, so we’re going to leave the fire number up and then if some of the precipitation moves away from the area and things start to dry up a little bit, then there’s a chance something will pop back up; that’s pretty much the same story as the other two as well.”

A wildfire near Clearwater Lake was reported on June 4 and is about 66 hectares in size. The Clearwater Lake fire is classified as being held.